It's December 27th. Two days after christmas. Five and a half months or so after I made a deal with myself, this summer. Gave myself a deadline. A deadline of six months.


2006 has arguably been the worst year of my life, with special emphasis on the late spring through summer. This was a time when Zack and I, buckling under the pressures of the problems our life together has fostered, took turns hurting each other. I've realized, recently, that I can't regret any of the things that I did to him on their own; that I have to regret the entire era of our relationship, as a whole. (I feel, as I write this, a hint of deja vu, so please forgive if I am being repetitive.) I've realized that my actions weren't those of a good person or a bad person, a promiscuous person or a faithful person, a person in love or a person in a bad relationship. My actions, in a way, weren't actions at all, but reactions. In a way, this can be said, too, of the things Zack did to me. In a way, we can blame each other infinitely, and everyone else, and everything else.

And at some point, though, we both have to take ownership of the ways we hurt each other. Under different circumstances, this concept-- that we both did what we did, and for whatever reason, we had control of ourselves going in, so ultimately the responsibility lies with us-- might have caused either of us to be unable to forgive the other. But we've accepted each other's failings, the moment when each of us fell from grace, because we both know what we tripped on.

Vaginismus.

Five and a half months ago, I gave myself a deadline. I realized that the vitality of my marriage, which once seemed so terribly immortal, hinged upon my ability to give Zack what he needs: sex. I realized, further, that of all the many things I've wanted to be in my life, and there have been many, the one I want know more than all the others combined is to be his, and no matter how I negotiate it with myself, I'm fairly sure that I don't want to be anything else at all if I can't be that. And I realized that while I've been making an effort all of this time, there was a nagging little seed of avoidance with in me, rooted more intricately than I knew, that kept causing me to put it off, the way I put off everything of importance. I let myself believe that I had all the time in the world to make this problem better, and I let the disease that this truly is take that time to make itself worse.

Now, I cannot function half as well as I once could. Now, I have built up so much baggage surrounding anything sexual, and I do mean much more than even those who have met me could possibly understand, that I have simply made it a non-issue in my life. Like someone who is afraid of bridges, I take alternate routes. I deal with the needs of others as nessecary, but ignore my own, or address them with machines designed to make intimacy obsolete. When I am not near a bed, or a partner, I feel the desperate need to relearn the art of pleasure; when pleasure is a possibility, I sabotage myself.


Listening to the hypnosis MP3, I have learned that if I am ever to cross the moat of frigity to slay the dragon of vaginismus, I must first defeat the castle guard that is my own cynicism. I've spoken of him here before as my inner critic, addressing him in terms of self-esteem and calling him "Jiminy Critic." I've given him a voice and told you all exactly what he has to say. And while my awareness of the destructive things he has to say about me was peaked, I did not realize that this self-worth-attacker by day was moonlighting as the soulmate of my sexual dysfunction.

He's telling me now that this personifying thing has gone too far. That I've used cast one too many metaphors, and I must reel them back in. He's not half bad to have around, when I write.

But when I'm listening to this MP3 that's instructing me to relax, and he's relentlessly mocking every word that's supposed to lull me into a state of suggestibility, he's not so helpful.

"Your muscles are melting like butter-- there's some imagery I've never heard before. She must have learned that in Hypnotherapy Clichés 101."

He disagrees with her when she tells me my stresses are melting away. Points out when the things she says come off of condescending. And just laughs when she gets too sacharin.


It occurs to me that he does not sound totally unlike my father, who taught my whole family to make cynical jokes out of anything that hits too close for comfort. The feeling I get as Jiminy battles my whispering voice that pleads with me to just let go, it seems, is somewhat similar to one I experienced on Christmas day: I forced my family, finally, to watch Love Actually with me, at long last. During one scene where one character is discovering her husband's affair, my father pseudo-jokingly criticizes the wife for snooping, and the husband's carelessness in leaving evidence to be discovered. Every time the couple graces the screen, his chiding gets louder, more forced, and it occurs to all of us that he is not really joking, just hiding his discomfort at the idea. My sister starts making comments back at him, sharp barbs amid the guise of laughter, that she'd always assumed he had experience with the topic. I try to ignore the truth behind it all-- watching my mother and father interact, seeing her forced strength when it comes to issues of philandering and loyalty, it's clear to see that somewhere in their 30-plus years together, some infidelity has occurred. I know this about my father, and accept it. I see the tolerance in my mother, and envy and pity it all at once. But as Cathy makes another "Joking" comment, and my mother joins in, I tune it out. Acknowledgement of this issue isn't the kind of family activity I had planned for this Christmas.


Believing, really believing, that eventually husbands cheat, eventually wives must turn a blind eye, or forgive, or cease to be wives-- this doesn't help the vaginismus. I don't know how much of it is fueled by what any more, but it never escapes my attention when I see or hear something that I can't help but believe is making it worse.

I'm thinking about yoga-- finding my inner self, forcing myself to practice at quiet, at acquiescence, at acceptance and moving on with the flow. I want to shut up Jiminy; slay the guard and start working on crossing the goddamned moat.

But it occurs to me that part of me doesn't want him gone. It's not just the part of me that wants to keep me safe from penetration-- or perhaps it is; there's more than one way to be penetrated, after all. Beyond the defensive reasons, though, I hear myself thinking that perhaps my outspoken little critic is the most interesting part of me, and he eagerly confirms the suspicion. We East-coasters wear our cynicism like a badge. We consider it a habit of intellectuals to congratulate ourselves on our free-thinking anger, to find our daily pride in moments when our comebacks are particularly brutal. We are warriors with minds faster than bullets, pens mightier than swords. This is the kind of cruel detachment that builds empires, makes millions, writes sitcoms. Careers have been built this way, and, furthermore, this is the way I've always wanted to build mine.

I don't hate Jiminy; I embrace him. I laugh along with him, because he's so undeniably a part of me. He is my father's voice, and also, perhaps, the thing I've always loved best about my father.


I fantasize that there's something like an on/off switch to be found; that I'll be able to listen to him when I want him, and tune him out when I don't. I suspect, however, that it doesn't work this way. That there's a choice to be made: that I need to be either in or out.

"No." Corrects Jiminy. "You need to put out and take it in."


To take a line from Sin City, I can't bring myself to tell him to shut up. Maybe he's just a part of my psyche. Maybe he's just a product of a guarded, sarcastic upbringing. Maybe he's just a figment of my imagination.

None of this stops the bastard from being absolutely right.


On with it.

My Cavalier Approach to Human Decency presents: Best and Worst Commercials, 2006 Holiday Edition.

Worst: Started airing a few years ago, but I'd happilly forgotten it until now: A series a of beautiful people, in beautiful places, with beautiful wind making their beautiful clothing whip around all their shapeliness look into the camera and send you a deep message for the holidays: It's not your clothes, it's not your music, it's not where you live and it's not how you dress that tells the most about who you really are.

It's your watch.

This christmas season, Seiko wants you to cast off your old concepts of vanity and self-importance...and adopt some newer, more expensive ones. This commercial, sadly, isn't online, but you can get a pretty good overview of what I'm taking about with their website's flash presentation.

Casey's reaction tends to make me think that I'm possibly the only person in the world who finds it so damn amusing, but hey, there it is.



Best: As much as I haven't always loved the Mad TV Cast's Sierra Mist commercials, I must say that I found this year's Commercial for Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash, featuring the Holiday Hawk, to be quite unexpectedly enjoyable. Check it out here.

On that note, YouTube is, one of these days, gonna go ahead and make my commercial-describing skills completely obsolete. How will I keep my place, gently embedded in the hearts of minds of my beloved readers?

Why bringing you news of ingenious internet advertising campaigns, like this one for the Philips Bodygroom, first! Don't miss the music video, or the description of "Where to Shave", both located in the main menu.


And since it seems the internet has made my job a great deal easier this year, I will sign off for now, wishing you a Merry Christmas, and reminding you, this Holiday season, to keep the spirit of joy in your heart, to give freely to others, to love, and to give every person, rich and poor alike, the same treatment, no matter their manner or apparel.

Unless they're not wearing a watch.


On with it.

I check my mail today and find the current e-mail in my inbox:

To: Suedecaramel@gmail.com
From: 66anonymous66@hotmail.com
Date: Saturday, December 9, 2006 8:55 PM
Subject: Hey Operation Suporvisor

The shit is about to hit the fan

Consider yourself warned

This seriously freaks me out. I have no idea what this could possibly be about, or who it could be from. It obviously has something to do with work, because "Operation Suporvisor" (sic) is my title. But I sat here for an hour trying to think of any thing that I've done wrong that could possibly "hit the fan", and I can't come up with a single goddamned thing. I've been working my ass off. I love my bosses and they like me, I think. And I love that store. I want nothing more than to see it's success, and I feel like I've made that clear. I've been nice to everybody, which is easy-- Iike almost everyone there. I am wracking my brain for anything I've said that could be considered offensive, and just can't come up with anything. I honestly have nothing to worry about.

But I'm really worried. I love this job.

I hope this figures itself out sooner than later.



On with it.

I finish my book today, close it, and find myself still at work three and a half hours after I should have left. It is a rare thing for me to finish a book, though I probably read more than the average person. Most of the novels I endeavor to start reading just don't make it across my finish line, the most recent being Dave Barry's Tricky Business and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. There is no pattern here.

I am wandering around the store, half looking for a replacement for the force that has just come and filled my life then left me standing in a void, half simply having no reason to go home. Bill, who I am drawn to, is rearranging the iPod accessories section. I strike up a conversation which, since it is not directly about work, makes me instantly self-conscious about what I have to say. When I was in elementary school, this kind of discomfort might have caused me to lash out, picking a fight with the object of my interest. I am an adult now, though, so instead, I just pick a fight with an object.

"These organic yoga mats annoy me." I say in his general direction, and he cocks his head. I pick one out of it's display and examin it's grainy brown color, a condescending hue if I ever saw one. "Was there really a need for this? Were we clear-cutting a forest of yoga mat trees?" I am miserably aware of the fact that there was a much more suave and intelligent way to say this, and I try to ignore that, only to find myself hoping that he doesn't pick up on the larger flaw, which is, of course, that if yoga mats were really made from yoga mat trees, than they'd already be organic. When he's still said nothing in reply, I tell him, more quietly, "Sometimes, I go on rants. You'll find that out about me."

"Okay. But they are a good development." He picks one up and reads the label. "These are made out of 100% Pico Plant fiber."

"Are you implying that we're running out of vinyl?"

"No, but these will decompose in a landfill." He says earnestly. Bill is one of those people that is so nice, it's impossible; so non-judgemental, you end up judging yourself in his presence just to make up for the deficit. "They create less waste."

"Thank god," I say, sarcastically. "I always say, the biggest challenge our environment faces right now is all the unrecycled yoga mats that pollute our air and water." In truth, I simply hadn't thought about it from this angle. But I wasn't to give up my armor of cynicism.

"Well, it's a start." He says, pleasantly, and goes back to his work. I turn my back to him and straighten a few books, wanting to rant on about how there might be more global good accomplished if people learned to be fiscally responsible with, say, the thirty dollar difference between the price of the organic yoga mat and it's cheaper synthetic cousin, or even sent that money off to Greenpeace, if that floats their boat. I wanted to point out that they could use that money to buy organic snacks for a rally against the excessive burning of fossil fuels or the tiny little cages they put those bleeding heart chickens into before they become McNuggets. I wanted to ask him to be my friend.

Instead, I say, "Great. Let's give those yoga people one more thing to feel self-righteous about."

He turned to look at me again. "You are on a rant, aren't you?"



On the ride home, I wonder if my bitterness was fueled, in part, by a yoga person I know who, at that exact moment, was neglecting to get back to me about tentative plans we had made, and it strikes me that it's always the decent people who motivate me to act like an asshole. I turn on the radio to washout this thought; 94.9, in it's all-holiday-music mode, is playing "Let There be Peace on Earth" performed by some country singer with a twangy voice. I listen, and am brightened, if just for a moment, by the simple words, and that special, subtle effect Christmas can have on you, to make you enjoy something you'd despise eleven months out of the year. Then, in the next verse, the country singer's voice is replaced by the voice of a young boy. It's meant to illicit feelings of innocence and nostalgia, carefully chosen to sound immature and somewhat nasal; suddenly, all I can think of is some far more talented child who auditioned, getting passed over because some record exec. with an eye on the bottom line said, not to the boy's face, "Nah, this kid's too good. We need to a kid that sounds like a kid. A common denominator." All I can think of is that kid not getting a callback, and wondering why. Hearing the song on the radio and being bitter, knowing he's better than Nosey McCan'tSing, but secretly wondering if maybe he really isn't.

I don't think I quite fit into the target demographic, here. Clearly, I am not the common denominator, either.

I pull into my drive way, and check my cell: still no text message from the yoga girl. I think about landfills, and how dishonest they are: let's take all this trash that we can't get rid of, trash that'll never be anything but trash, and bury it. Wait for some green grass to grow back, it'll look nice. We're making our own geography here. The rolling hills of Scotland, almost. Why not just a warehouse, I wonder. And where were the yoga people when that decision was being made?

A big pile of trash covered by a thin layer of soil and grass; it's not much of a disguise, but, then, neither is picking a fight with a yoga mat. I can't help but wonder who came up with this concept, and why.


On with it.

I feel, lately, the need to be fake. Things that are going on in my head, I feel like I can't write them here, for the first time. The guy I can't allow myself to expose my continued vulnerability to, anymore. The girl who I have no let understand how badly I want to get to know her. Problems with Zack's family that are not mine to publicize.

At night, I lay in bed and these things swirl through my mind, and I feel the need to commit them to paper, or the modern day equivalent. The process I've developed to deal with my day-to-day problems involves a detailed equation, reconciled only when I've put it into words precise and rhythmic enough to be worthy of an audience, then shared. In the end, the sum of my circumstances and neuroses is humanity, the story of my character, and if it's written well enough, than people will love me for the confession, no matter how heinous the crime.


Part of the situation that I am not at liberty to publicize in this manner winded up bringing me, today, somewhere I did not comfortably fit in, a place where the reality is harsh and uncomfortable, so much that going there was not only a physical journey, but a leap forward, too, in time: most often, we age at a regular pace, maybe different for all of us, but pretty constant throughout any one life. Every so often, though, things happen that push you forward at a dizzying speed, and you stumble forward, haphazardly maturing out of nessecity. To get through these things, you understand, you have to be a little bit more of an adult than you ever planned on being.

Without giving away too much detail, I hope, I found myself waiting with Zack and his brother in St. Mary's, just outside the psych ward, just after the elevators and before the locking doors. We layed on the stairs and listened to MP3's on Ian's cell phone, and I stared up at the concrete bricks painted with that institulional paint, a beige so bland that it hardly even qualifies as a color, and suddenly I was overcome with a sense of familiarity.

"This feels like high school." I said. Zack and Ian acknowledged me, but then moved on with the conversation, leaving me to decipher the deeper implications.


I'm reading Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper right now, a recommendation from Barb, a teacher at Andover who I miss since I've stopped going. It's excellent; I don't feel qualified to give a full-blown recommendation until I finish it, but, unlike with most books, I have no doubt that I will. The book is dramatic, sad and complex, with a new tragic revelation, like a punch to your gut, ever third page or so (but not in a bullshit, unbelievable, Forged by Fire kinda way. Moreover, it's a way that feels familiar to anyone who's ever gotten the sense that life really does love to kick you when you're down.) In the midst of all this tradgedy, though, the author's wit comes through in a real way, and, in spite of it all, you find yourself wanting to laugh just as often as you want to to cry.

You should go to Border's Brunswick and pick it up. I hear they have a great selection, there.



On with it.

The problem, as I see it, is ambiguoity: for any given situation, the answer is different. There is no hard-and-fast rule whether virtue is to be found in letting go of what hurts or fighting for what doesn't. Romantic movies spout different morals to this end: The Mexican's somewhat famous morale is that, between two people who love each other, you never reach the point of "enough is enough", but you get the sense in the movie that they just might reach that point anyway. In Casablanca, she turns and leaves the man she loves for a more promising future, but you can't help but think she should have stayed. Romeo and Juliet stay together forever through all costs, but the costs are high. More and more, romantic comedies are featuring a new kind of love story: the kind where a couple loves, changes each others lives in a meaningful way, then parts amicably; these stories, The Breakup and Prime to name a couple off of the top of my head, end on a new kind of resolution, where there's a scene at the end where they see each other and smile, pleasantly, acknowledging their mutual past and bearing no ill will. It's not exactly happily ever after, but it's all some of us dare to dream of, anymore.

In California, we had a "talking circle" every day before massage class began, where we sat and shared whatever was on our mind; things of significance, things of insignificane; a lot of west-coast touchy-feely crap, really, but when in Mariposa. There was a somewhat creepy older man there, Chuck was his name, I believe, and no one really liked partnering up with him very much, touching and being touched by his leathery, backwoods skin, but in a group we managed to get along with him pretty well, poking well-meaning fun at the weird things he said, and he learned to take it in stride. One day in the circle though, he said something that didn't sit well with a lot of the people there: he began telling the story, very casually, of a woman he had loved years ago, a relationship which had ended badly, and how he'd spent every year since then, twenty or thirty or so in all, trying to get her to just talk to him. It was clear that, for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what made this strange, or why she'd stopped accepting his calls. The reaction of this was something of an uproar; a lot of people had a lot of opinions. One woman, Pauline, started lecturing him in the all-knowing way she must have used on her kids about how desperately important it was for him to let go. I didn't like Pauline particularly before that, and I especially didn't like what she had to say. My anger came out, at first, in twisting hands and stifled grunts, and as the people to either side of me tried to offer their support and quiet me, I couldn't take it any longer. I got up and walked away, breaking the circle, and the unspoken rule not to walk away when someone else was speaking.

What I couldn't put into words them was not that I agreed with Chuck, in particular, that he was doing the right thing in clinging to the love of this woman, but that Pauline had no basis in which to assert he was wrong. No one in that room had the right or the knowledge to say whether what he was doing was foolish or wise, whether it would end badly; whether it would be worth it if it did. Despite the way it looked on the surface, I sided slightly with him, for my own reasons: this was during the longest fight that Jeremey and I had ever had, the one that lasted more than a year. I had gotten use to people telling me that I needed to let go of my love for him, gotten used to my own, steadfast reply: Jeremey and I, we could last through anything. Maybe he wouldn't take my calls, maybe I'd shed enough tears over him to drown an ocean. But Jeremey and I, I were sure, would be the truest kind of friends, forever.


Tonight, he was the one I called when I learned that once again I'd been lied to by the person I hate being lied to the most. I wasn't wrong in hanging on to my love for Jeremey, and it's good that I wasn't: there are friends I tend to give to and friends I tend to take from. Jeremey is one of the latter, but in a situation where I know I'm going to fall apart, I tend to choose to take from the givee's: if you're going to be humiliated by your tearful vulnerability, it's preferrable that it be with someone who's own tearful vulnerability you know well. While I was on the phone with Jeremey, the subject of our discussion beeped on the other line, and asked me to meet him for dinner.


Ambigouity is one problem, maybe even the problem, but credibility, or lack thereof, is another: when lying becomes a pattern, the truth becomes this distant...I don't know. I don't know. But the reason I don't know is because of the sheer distance of the truth. What I do know is this: those cartoons where the character in the dessert sees a mirage and begins to shovel the sand into their mouth because they believe it's water, that's credible. One might wonder why the brain lets the heart believe it's drinking. The reason of course is this: the brain knows that when survival is nearly impossible, and the priority is keeping things as painless as possible, hope is more important than water.


Standing in front of my mirage, I resolved myself to swallowing the grainy liquid he offered up, knowing that once he drove away, I'd be coughing up dust. The thing is, it's no longer even really a quesiton of whether or not he is lying to me. It's a question of whether or not I can bring myself to believe him.

Whatever the truth is, it may be too distant to matter anymore. Ambigouity is taking hold, and I don't know whether to fight for the truth or for what I want to be true, to give up entirely or to just try and believe. I know, for sure, two things: I'm tired of writing this, and I need a drink.

On with it.

"If there's no one beside you,
when your soul embarks,
Then I will follow you into the dark."

This song has been stuck in my head today. At our morning meeting at work, the question of the day was "What is your favorite song?" These questions are meant to help us get to know each other, an old work orientation cliche, but this time, with new prospects: More than ever, those I've held dearest are absent my life, spread far and wide throughout the state and country. In past, my transient group of friends, as opposed to the longer-lasting varierty, has revolved around my current job, generally taking a good six to seven months to kick in. Hearing, every day, one more tidbit of what I have in common with people helps me to draw my hypothetical social cirlces in my mind-- a drawing that I must keep in mind will be wiped clean in a couple of days when the trainers-- who I tend to get along the best with-- leave, and I'm forced to resume the more authorative stance of working above someone more than I currently work alongside them.

Whenever I ask, in my personal life, the "favorite song" question, I am disappointed to find that 98% of people's immediate response is "Oh, I have a lot of favorites, I can't pick one." This saddens me, as, being one of the few who has a definitive favorite song, I understand that there is something about having one song that is just you, and only one. The lift you feel when you hear it is maybe a little different than the more common "Oh, I love this song"; It's a moment that feels as though it's just for you, and when you are surrounded by others who let the moment pass by without stopping to feel it, then it helps remind you of yourself, your individuality. There are things that are only for you, and here, this is one of them.

Today Zac S.-- not to be confused with Zack S. (husband)-- named Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Follow You into the Dark", one of my recent favorites, getting it stuck in my head in a solemn joy that lasted most of the morning, and came back again that night. I found myself transported into other times in which I heard it playing: Once, in an apartment, on an ironic night, hearing it once and then again. Two distinct times that sandwiched a defining moment, and perhaps a moment that defined me as something I'd prefer not to be. The first time I heard it that night, it left me feeling determined. The second, it left me feeling...immeasurably sad, a failure, someone who's actions were inevitably guided by a deep, archaic force that leaves willpower looking like a crushed can in a gutter.


More recently, I remember laying in bed with Zack, our heads on pillows, lying on our sides and looking at each other. For some reason, I had asked him to sing to me, and he did, some song he knew, something to make me smile. Somewhere in our ensuing conversation, I was reminded of the song, and the night, and I explained to him that I could no longer listen to it without crying. He asked why and I explained it, in more detail than you're entitled to here (or rather, details that he is entitled to have fairly exclusively, details that I leave out, not out of lack of esteem for you, but for attempted respect for him.). I could see, having explained the context, that he understood, but not completely, not knowing the song the way I did, and so I sang it to him, in my broken, shaky voice, with tears streaming down my face.

"Love of mine,
Someday you will die,
But I'll be close behind;
I'll follow you into the dark.
No blinding light,
Or tunnels to gates of white,
Just our hands clasped so tight,
Waiting for the hint of a spark.

If heaven and hell decide,
That they are satisfied.
Illuminate the No's,
On their vacancy signs.
If there's no one beside you,
When your soul embarks,
Then I will follow you into the dark."


It's a simple song, with a simple melody, and a simple theme: unconditional love. What I've learned about unconditional love is this: It exists, but don't get it mixed up with the kind of love that changes as your relationship with a person does, which is more common. In my experience, these things are layered: The top layer is a blanket of ambulatory love, which changes with the seasons, running thick and thin. When thick, it's fascinating and powerful; you could swear you'd do anything for a person, move mountains, walk through fire, all the standby clichés. When thin, it's maybe more comfortable; if too thin, it may not feel like love at all, maybe more like anger or disdain. Circumstances come and go, times change, and so does this vagabond devotion-- this changing tide is, more often than not, what leaves people feeling cynical about love itself.

What people don't understand, perhaps, is that under all this pulsing instability, most often, is a foundation. Hard, unmoving, steadfast and true, that rare love that truly is unconditional. So low-laying, you may not even know it's there when you've run out of the stuff up top. But, if you're lucky enough to feel it, and have it felt for you, you'll find again and again that it's the stuff that lasts, and that it can be rebuilt upon as many times as your heart can stand it. Which is a suprisingly large number.


What I believe about mine and Zack's relationship-- the husband, not the coworker-- is that we're built on a slightly thicker foundation. Maybe thing I've done, maybe things he's done, maybe things we've both done have rocked it, but the tears we've shed in our regret haven't made their way to any cracks yet, so I'll go on, unafraid to cry as I look in his eyes and sing that I will follow him into the dark.


On with it.

So I generally like to avoid the kind of "personal update" posts like the one I'm about to embark on, but firstly, I'm crazy busy lately, meaning almost no one who might regularly have some contact with me has any idea of where I am and what's happened to me, and secondly, I hate that the most recent post on the site (which I've just spent the past few months working on driving new people to) is a link to a questionable rough draft of a really creepy story I wrote in the middle of the night. I do like the story, which has as a working title of "Andrew" (no relation, honestly, to any Andrew I've ever met), but, judging from the lukewarm reception from those who have read it, I think it has a face only a mother could love.

The other story, "The Best Man", opened to much better reviews, despite the sore need for improvements which have been racing to my mind. The day after I churned it out, I was completely excited to get busy editing, but the next night, I wrote "Andrew", and soon after started in at Border's where, as we prepare to open on November 16th, my hours have been much longer than anyone could have expected.

So, some quick, and relevant updates.

• The job is good. I'm happy-ish with my pay, relieved to be working so close to home, thrilled to be working in a bookstore, and challenged by and respected for the work I do. I have an office. People suck up to me (I control their paychecks.) My boss is impressed by how quickly I'm catching on to the work, as am I: you never think you're capable of doing things until you have to, it seems. I'm considering making moving up in this company my practical career goal, settling on this for my main source of income. It's hard to tell whether or not I'd be happy for life in a place like this, having only been there about a week now, but I can see it happening, and that, well, that's a first. Plus, it would be nice to stop worrying about where I want to be in the future, and start focusing on what I want to accomplish in the future, in terms of, for instance, my impractical career goals, among other things.
• The dog got neutered on halloween and, in my opinion, his behavior has already improved. There's a post waiting to be written about the events leading up to this finally being pushed through the financial red tape (with shocking photos!) Hopefully, I get to this in the near future, being that I have some time off this weekend (Sunday's off, and only eight or nine hours tomorrow!)
• The latest few e-mails I've sent out have gone yet unanswered, which leaves me wondering about my status with the people I sent them to. I thought I'd give this a bullet, just in case it might speed up the process of finding out where I stand.
• I need to talk to my mom to find out if she can help me pay to get my hormones tested and buy a custom hypnotherapy CD. I've stopped seeing my therapist, who was supposed to be helping me with the vaginismus, for a variety of reasons-- the biggest of which involving her extremely inconvenient location, but before I did, she suggested that balancing my potential overload of estrogen might ease the pain I feel with arousal. As for the hypnosis, Border's will let me play CD's in my office (did I mention I have an office?), and I'm thinking about taking the audio from a hypnosis CD and layering it behind some musical tracks with an audio editor like nero or something, to achieve a subliminal effect. I hope to give me, and everyone who comes into my office with a direct deposit form, a better chance of getting laid in the near future. sex is good. sex is natural.

I guess the point of this post is to let you know that I haven't abandon you, whether you're a new reader who's starved and confused without your daily serving of Me (An average of 65 grams* of goodness in every post!), or someone who has the misfortune of knowing me in real life. I will emerge soon, squinting, into the light of real life.

If you need me before then, I'll be in my office.

On with it.


*Daily value not established.

Thursday, playing DDR, I started thinking about a stripper playing it, and from there, I ended up writing a 3335 word rough draft in a little under five hours. Needs editing, and I mean a lot of editing, but those of you who have read it so far have given me some pretty positive feedback.

Tonight, I was laying in bed, unable to get to sleep, I started thinking about naked lego people. And from there, I came up with this.

4,289 words of the most twisted shit that's ever come out of me, I kid you not. Less than three hours. Again, a very rough draft. Again, I haven't reread it-- would probably give me nightmares if I tried to do that now. And do not read that if you have a weak...anything.


Prolific? Maybe. Disturbed? Definitely.


On with it.

FieryGwenivere: The bush plug in your profile reminds me of divine-interventions.com
C LABRACK: this baby jesus buttplug...that's for a discriminating customer right there
FieryGwenivere: yeah, it is indeed
FieryGwenivere: gotta love that they're all silicone, that is some high-quality shit
C LABRACK: grim reaper dildo
FieryGwenivere: haha, that's what a woman really needs to overcome the pervasive sense that masturbation is wrong
FieryGwenivere: When I had my first holy communion, they gave me a glow-in-the-dark cross to hang on my bedroom wall. That's the shit they shoulda given me, right there.
FieryGwenivere: Same basic message, but a little more punch.


Recent converations with Casey, Serena, Emily and others have shown me that I, beyond a shadow of a doubt, have the most intensive knowledge of online sex toy stores of anyone I've ever met. Whether you're looking for a holy holler or just to save a dollar, I know what it's made of, how well it works, where you can get it and for how much. This is either a point of pride for me or a point of shame for my husband. To be decided later.

Another convesation with Casey, earlier tonight, had us comparing the different styles of and abilities of writers we know. When I asked him to rate me among them, he said I'd have to finish something before he could a sense of my rank. I told him I finished things all the time, just not fiction, and continued to say that I wasn't really drawn to the genre anymore, and, resting on a preference for personal essays, I doubted that I'd ever see a piece of fiction of my own published.

I suppose that planted something of a seed for me because later, as I was playing DDR for a cardio workout I sorely, I found myself writing a few lines of a story in my head. Without my really trying, these few lines fleshed themselves out into a full story, which is rare for me-- most of the stories I think about never get written, for lack of either a beginning, middle, or an end. Most times, I get a couple of good lines but can't link them to anything meaningful at all. When I realized the story had written itself, I gave myself permision to stop exercising. The energy to get up and move may be rare, but the motivation to sit down and right something is rarer.

I sat down at just after midnight. Three thousand, three hundred and fifty-five words and five hours later, I have a rough draft on my hands. I don't know if it's good; I know my neck is sore and I'm too tired to proofread. I knew if I didn't get it all out, it would become one of those unfinished things that I save to a filename I forget and never get back to. Now it's out, and I can do more with it sometime when sitting up isn't such a literal pain in the neck; in the meantime, read it if you've got some time, and some extreme understanding for the concept of a first draft. Takes a lot of trust for a writer to let someone read their first draft. Especially if they haven't so much as re-read it themselves yet.

The Best Man

On with it.

So, Playtex is getting a lot of airtime lately advertising it's pseudo-revolutionary sport tampons. I don't wear tampons or play sports, so it's difficult to be critical, but low and behold, I'm going to do it anyway: commercials and the website are tooting the three uniquely sport-friendly levels of protection (which they have dubbed, in a rare moment of prepositional confusion, "levels to protection") including a "one-of-a-kind backup layer (that won't let you down!)", "Unique 360 degree coverage", and a "Contoured Applicator with a No-Slip (trademark) Grip."

No-Slip Grip on a sport tampon applicator? Do they expect that their olympain clientelle will be inserting the tampons mid-sprint?

No goal, Playtex. No goal.


Saw Flags of our Fathers tonight. Pretty standard WWII flick, maybe a little less impressive than I was expecting: perhaps in an effort to collapse a book of 400 pages into a movie of only just over two hours (despite how long it felt), they went for a non-linear approach which made it difficult to follow, especially when considering that, throughout the whole movie, you only really got to know three characters, though you were expected to know all of them by name to make sense of it. There was the leitmotif battle scene gore, easily passed off as a nessecity to accurately potray the horrors of war but, in reality, just as much an attempt to drive in the younger male audiences, and the old men suffering from flashbacks to drive the cautionary morale of the story: war is bad. Also, an interesting storyline involving the hardships a Native American soldier encounters as he fights for the nation that has so mistreated his people. But, overall, I felt little watching this movie, as I do watching any historical movie that lacks a central romantic relationship. Perhaps it's my own disinterest in history; perhaps, it's a generational thing. Either way, what I did find fascinating was this: the moment the very first credit hit the screen, myself and the ten other patrons under fifty stood up immediately, and made a bee-line for the door, exasperated by the thirty minutes of slow-moving epilogue and wrap-up. I heard a forty-year-old man make a cynical comment to his son about the length as I left, but looked at those who were still seated: the majority of the few seats that had been sold for the Tuesday afternoon showing were occupied by elderly patrons, all of which who were still staring up at the screen, thoughtful or teary-eyed, their hands held up to their faces.

Guess I just wasn't part of the target audience.


After the movie, with time to kill, I went shopping. Among other places, I visited Bookland, currently Brunswick's only large bookstore, once part of a small chain. Emily and I were particularly fond of the one that graced the Tontine mall in Lewiston, eventually bought out by Mr. Paperback, and, more recently, shrunk to a third of it's previous size. In it's hayday, however, I went every chance I got: It was there that Emily and I met and obsessed over Randy, the only boy she ever dated who turned out to be just as gay as her. I discovered Charles Bukowski there, sitting in a chair adjacent to the poetry section and leafing through "Love is a Dog from Hell" for an hour or so each time I went, before I could finally afford to buy it. I discovered recently, when I started looking to buy the very same book as a Christmas present for my Father-in-law that the Mr. Paperback serving in it's place has a terribly inadequate poetry section, which is more than can be said of Waldenbooks in the Auburn Mall or Books, etc. in Falmouth, both of which seem to have gotten rid of their poetry sections altogether. Not unlike myself, these business have evolved past the overly emotional medium; still, it seems more my perogative to do this than theirs.

I eventually found the book, gratefully, at Border's in Portland. I've always loved Borders for the same reasons I love Bookland and Barnes and Noble and even the evil and fictional Foxbooks from You've Got Mail: a mix, I suppose, of literary fascination and raw materialism, with just a hint of starry-eyed ambition to be among the names that line the shelves. Overwhelmed with these two distinct kinds of greed and surrounded both by cultured, intelligent people and all the materials I could need to rise to their ranks, I am happy in my wanting, unable to grow bored. It was because of this feeling that I was particularly excited about an application I submitted months ago to the Border's which is opening in Brunswick, and particularly discouraged when it seemed as though they would never call back. They did, eventually, and last week, I got word that I was hired as a supervisor, to begin training this friday for the store opening in mid-November. I'm happy about this turn of events: retail, in my experience, is infinitely preferrable to the food industry, and starting as a supervisor at the store's opening presumedly means I'll be in a fine position for promotion to management in the store's first years. Still, something the interviewer, who was downright angry for a human resources employee, said was bothering me: she mentioned how angry and threatened the owner of Bookland had been rather bitterly, saying that there was more than enough business for everyone, if they can simply compete. It didn't occur to me quite then that it's not so realistic to expect that it can: an independent business, the Brunswick bookland is one of only two remaining, and it seems tradtionally naive to bank upon the loyalty of their current customer base: hell, for ten dollars an hour, I'll be working for the enemy.

The guilt of this gave me pause before I went into Bookland tonight. I sat down with a Dover Thrift Edition and read a short story by Sherwood Anderson, thinking of how I used to by these books back when they were all a dollar or two, because they were all I could afford, but never read more than a few pages of any of them. I strolled through the kid's section, at the same corner of the store as the one in Lewiston had been, and realized that I couldn't remember the exact layout, any longer, of the place I once frequented. I don't know why Bookland in Lewiston had to sell, though it certainly wasn't for competition; presumedly, it must have been because the majority of the Lewiston population can't read. But when Bookland in Brunswick, always sweet with the smell of books and baked goods, closes, we'll all know why.


Like a gold-medalist passing the torch with one hand and flinging her soaking Playtex into the audience with the other, this, I suppose, is progress.

Emily and I were discussing my slight preference towards holistic medicine, and when I mentioned that things like the Hanna Kroeger method proport to being able to provide cures, not just symptom-focused treatments, for things that are considered incurable in mainstream medicine (like herpes and Alzheimer's), she asked why they weren't catching on. When I typed the word "conspiracy", AIM suspiciously shut down and would not open again until I closed that window, after which I logged back on continued my deviant plan to plant a seed of doubt in the mind of my highly influential friend in the...medical research assitant field.

FieryGwenivere: The popular theory is that there's a conspiracy to keep people sick and dependent on medications
InfiniteAaah: : blame it all on capitalism
InfiniteAaah: : and now with the outsourcing of medical care... you have to wonder how things like that will change
FieryGwenivere: outsourcing of medical care?
InfiniteAaah: : they are flying people to India to have surgery because it's cheaper
FieryGwenivere: interesting
InfiniteAaah: : health insurance companies. how resourceful!
FieryGwenivere: and, they get to see monkeys. Nothing bad about that.
FieryGwenivere: It's so like those greedy corporations to declare war on upper-upper-class by outsourcing the medical procedures that our surgeons so desperately need to feed their families, and their servant’s families, for that matter. I smell Lou Dobbs’ next book.
InfiniteAaah: : well, except that the care is sub-par in many cases
FieryGwenivere: Are you hearing that from your own sources, or from the angry American doctors that you work for?
InfiniteAaah: : I don't work for doctors
InfiniteAaah: : I work for highly political ex-hippie statisticians
InfiniteAaah: : for the most part
FieryGwenivere: you understand that this is less me arguing and more me trying to provide all possible points of view, yes?
InfiniteAaah: : yes.
FieryGwenivere: But I am proud of myself for making a topical, politically relevant joke about outsourcing and socioeconomics.
FieryGwenivere: That's a rare opportunity, there, and I didn‘t let it go to waste.
FieryGwenivere: Normally my topics are limited to sex, relationships and television, like Carrie Bradshaw, minus the shoes and social life.

And now, a mini-installment of Linda Recommends.

Linda recommends:

• The equally entertaining and thought-provoking Micheal Crichton book, State of Fear, which will help neutralize the doomsday negativity that many have felt in recent years in regards to the threat of global warning, heightened now by the relative popularity of Al Gore's Book/Documentary, An Inconvenient Truth. (Working title: A Conveniently Timed Propagandism. Not, as you may have expected, on my list of Recommendations.) Don't have time to chew through 688 pages of slightly incredible death-defying thrills? Allow me to summarize the important points: Wear sunscreen, drive fuel efficient cars, and don't sweat global warming. Most people don't realize that it's still a highly controversial theory, and for every piece of evidence that the ice caps are melting and atmosphere is heating up, there's a piece or two that it's not, plus a picture of Al Gore with his potatoe-shaped up his asse.
• Olay's Total Effects Anti-Aging Anti-Blemish Daily Cleanser. The other day I sat in a salon chair, studying my face in the flourescent-lighted mirror as a hairdresser gave me a much-needed trim, and I was for to notice, as I have lately, that the lines formed by my cheeks when I smile have begun to make themselves a more permanent feature in my face, appearing, when I am expressionless, as something that would be classified as a "fine line". I've always been a fan of prevention when it comes to the kinds of vanity issues that years of watching the Golden Girls has taught me to fear, so I decided that now was as good a time as any to start investing in the health of my fifty-year-old face. I perused the selection in the Hannaford next door and bought this cleanser on the basis of visual appeal (I am sucker for aesthetics in marketing) and practicality: I might not be able to justify buying a fifteen-dollar tub of wrinkle cream when I don't have any actual wrinkles, but every girl should have a good cleanser. The cream has a pleasant odor, a soft, non-greasy texture and very subtle exfoliants, plus it's 2% salicylic acid, enough to work for minor acne. What's more, having only used this product a handful of times over the course of a week, I noticed that my complexion was a bit clearer and brighter, but what shocked me, when I checked the mirror today, was the discover that the fine lines I so feared are already nearly invisible. Granted, I'm twenty-two, but that's still pretty freaking impressive. Go out and buy some, and give yourself a fighting chance to spend your Golden years as more of a Blanche than a Dorothy.

On with it.

Technorati tags: Hanna Kroeger Holistic Medicine Conspiracy AIM conversations Michael Crichton state of fear Global Warming An Inconvenient Truth Al Gore Skin Care Golden Girls

The Sunday Scribblings' prompt is "good", and I want to get listed near the top, hopefully boosting readership a bit, now would be a good time to talk about it. What it is that I think "good" is.


When I was young, I thought "good" was easy. I would apologize to God every time I experimented with a swear word, and lay in bed at night, saying "excuse me" repeatedly, hoping to neutralize any tiny burp I may have missed in the years before I learned how to speak. I had, at a suspiciously early age, bisexual feelings and kinky, mastubatory fantasies, and I guarded these things as my most frightening secrets, wraught with a kind of shame that only a little catholic girl can know. My Sunday School teacher told me that "good" was confessing to a man in a booth: I remember the way she explained it, the visual I had in mind that your soul was like a an outline of you drawn on paper, and each sin was a black dot somewhere on your pastel person, slowly but surely clogging out your big-eyed "Precious Moments"-esque purity. I remember being in that terrifying booth, looking at the obfuscated face of the man behind the screen, trying, for the first time, to verbalize the awkward words for my shameful deeds, thinking that he must never have heard anything so terrible in his life. I remember crying, being unable to finish-- I was maybe seven, and they were asking me to talk to a complete stranger about secretly masturbating? All for my own good, they told us. Confession, my teacher told us, would wipe away all those dots, all at once, if you admitted to them, so you had to make sure you went often enough so that you didn't turn completely black.

Call me Whoopi Goldberg, baby, 'cause I ain't never been back.

Eventually, my big, tear-shaped eyes, which welled and weeped every time I thought to that horrifying moment alone in that box and my soul-bound obligation to return, changed shape. They grew smaller and slanted, like I was scrunitizing everything that I could see, and the more corruption I discovered, the more I found it's footsteps traced back to that box, but it wasn't until I was about twelve when I found relief from my guilt in the form of an Alanis Morrisette song. "Forgiven" talked about growing up Catholic, the skepticism and jadedness it can breed. "I confessed my darkest deeds to an envious man// My brothers they never went blind for what they did// But I may as well have." I never understood that second line until now; had I understood the reference, it would have brought me even more comfort than it did. Still, I saw her words as my permission to be defiant-- she spoke of people clinging to religion out of blind belief, and it opened my eyes. It was sometime in the hours I would lay awake in bed, no longer saying "excuse me" but listening to "Jagged Little Pill" over and over again that I found the courage to cultivate my doubt into declared atheism.

My parents tried to scare me back into spirituality with the whole "Christmas" angle. It took me about a month to come up with my retort-- that I was happy to participate as a celebration of humankind. They saw this as a cop-out, but, in the end, didn't have the follow-through to disclude me in the ritual, or else they knew I'd have sent them the bill for my resulting therapy.


And now, now I still don't believe in God. I keep my mind open to the possibility of spiritual realities, but I think there's about as much chance of the universe being ruled by a single, monotheistic man as there is of it being ruled by one of the burps I didn't cancel out. Intellectually, I feel I've made progress, but the question remains: is my moral compass pointing me any closer to the all-powerful "good"? The shame has passed; I blog about vibrators and hope any priests who happen to read enjoy it. I've married, but remain open, with my husband's blessings, to the possibility of the bisexual experiences that I once hoped to grow out of wanting. But I also stick any change I find on the floor of McDonald's in my pocket, rather than the padlocked RMH collection banks in front of the registers, which is, essentially, stealing nickels from terminally ill children. I don't find anyone that I don't love worthy of the simple respect of honesty, and will lie furiously to avoid blame or perceived judgement. And, as if by habit, I say hurtful things to the people I do love, without really meaning too. Nowadays, when I do pass on something that could be to my benefit based on a moral objection, I find I am genuinely shocked by the turn of events.

So, what is good? And is this sick, dirty feeling that overcomes me when I'm finished with my Magic Wand or the tense embarrassment I feel when friends speak loudly in public about same-sex encounters just the leftovers from an upbringing of fear and repression? Or is it my moral compass trying to point my way home?


Just in case: Excuse me.



On with it.


Technorati Tags: sunday scribblings good confession religion personal evolution moral compass atheism Alanis Morrisette

A little bit of writer's block. Let's break through it with something list-y.


Linda Recommends:

• Neutrogena Men Razor Defense Shave Gel for women who want a clean, bump-free shave in...you know, the place where a woman wants a clean, bump-free shave. Ironically, this men's product works better in the bikini zone than the product called "Bikini Zone".
• Tab Energy Drink, another female-friendly product, is the first consumable energy drink on the market, as far as I'm concerned, and the pinkest thing I've ever seen in my life-- it even tastes like pink. My bringing this up one day at my former workplace prompted an intersting discussion on what kinds of things "taste like pink", a list which included bologna, strawberry wine, and pepto bismo, but, until I intervened, completely omitted the obvious. ("What tastes like pink? Well, in my husband's experience, Neutrogena Men Razor Defense Shave Gel.")
• Clicking the Flickr button in the newly-added "Family Obligations" section of my sidebar, and checking out the photography of my sister, known as CateForgotten to those in the online photography circuit (And as "Cathy, Queen of Everything" to those who were around during the weekend she got her wisdom teeth out.). To be honest, the range of Cathy's work begins with shots that might be labelled as contrived ("Let's make this photo black and white, except for in select places, where the color stands out! Surely, no one has thought of that before!"), but ends with vivid portraiture that captures the spirit of youth or simple shots that capture the slow pace of a life in a quiet, coastal town. (Browse My Favorites to see some of her best.)
• Happy Penis Wild Cherry Flavored Massage Cream. Something else that tastes like pink.

Well, I couldn't end the list with a supportive, sentimental "Full House" moment. That'd be like Kim Anderson-level sappy.

Linda doesn't Recommend:

• The 43 Things website. All week, I've been sitting on an entry I've been wanting to write about this website, a community site where people make a list of up to 43 things they want to accomplish in their lifetime, and then are linked to the other people who share a goal (350 people want to help make the world a better place, 807 people want to watch every episode of "Lost", etc.). I wanted to write a recommendation for the originality, as well as for the motivating quality that writing down your goals, and putting them out, for all to see, can have. However, I've discovered as I've been using it that this website has more technical glitches than a Milli Vanilli concert. I could deal with this much, but when I tried to report the problems, I've found that the typical technical support section (underestimated in all it's practicality) had been replaced by a relative clone of their home site, this time called 43 ideas, where people can list their suggestions and and grievances, and are, surprise surprse, linked to the other people who share an idea (117 people wants the 43 Things staff to add a friends list, at least one person wants 43 Things staff to go fuck thesmselves.) Seemingly, these people mastered exactly one website's worth of advanced coding and then went back to playing Super Smash Brothers.

However, I do recommend that you check out my favorite screenshots from my 43 things experience.

From the "Buy A House" Goal.
Ah, the American dream: Marriage, Kids, and Firefox.

My favorite part of this rather ironic mispelling situation is the top advertisment. "They can't spell 'college'? Well...do they have a tuition check?"

Willing to help.

It's gonna take me all freaking night to perfect that HTML. Fun fun.

On with it.



Technorati tags: 43 things bikini zone photography flickr bisexuality mispelling

A few weeks ago on Emily's livejournal, she confessed that she had not been posting as of late as a result of a comment she received on one post that made her feel criticized for the feelings she had written about. I offered my support to her, feeling that it was entirely inappropriate for someone to react this way to something she had written about her feelings, and thought to myself that this, among many other reasons, is why I do not allow comments to my blog.

A few days later, however, I did open up a post for comments, specifically, so that my readers could have an oppurtunity to offer Emily best birthday wishes. In that same post, I also criticized the work of a fellow web-based writer, Robert Paul Reyes. And thus, the controversy begins.

Clicking the link above will allow you to view the post in question with all attached comments, including one from a Ms. Debbie Moore, who defended Mr. Reyes with a certain flare...a "the best defense is a good offense" strategy, if you will. Debbie called me, to paraphrase slightly, an anal-retentive nitwit who needs to learn to be a decent human being, a response that jarred me for both it's excessive venom and easiness: Let's face it, implying that I might not be the world's most decent human being is like implying that Yoko Ono might not have had perfect pitch. (See also: Title of the damn website. Oh, and apparently the definition of the adjective Cavalier. Because, Debbie, I ain't talking about the Chevy.)


I can only suspect that it was Debbie who then told on me to Robert Paul Reyes himself, hoping, presumedly, that I'd get detention for my remarks. Mr. Reyes read the post, and a few others on my site, and then sent me a message on AIM, asking why I had such hostility towards him. I explained, as I'd been wonder if I'd have to, that the use of the word "Jackass" was more about rhetoric than hatred. (You need that one, too, Debbie? Rhetoric.) I went on further to explain that, as with anyone with a public face, there's a healthy layer of character on top of the reality that I write, as to facilitate a more persuasive, or, in this case, humorous, piece. We seemed to reach an understanding on this; he offered his encouragement to me, as a writer, and I thanked him. He promised to use a semi-colon every now and then, from now on.

So it seems the only Jackass left in this equation is...oh, I don't think I have to say it. (Anyone need that defintion? Jackass?)

Not going to open up comments this time; I rather like the feeling of putting my writing out there, then arrogantly assuming it's well-received. Perhaps, though, this is where there is a real fault in my character, my fatal flaw, a real seed of callousness, of pride, of evil, even. Perhaps this is where I shirk the responsibility I have to develop a true sense of human decency.






Eh, you win some, you lose some. On with it.

Technorati Tags: cavalier comment war rhetoric humor writing robert paul reyes introspection semi-colon

I believe it was my junior year that Lisbon High School became graced with it's very first little person. Lance wasn't a technical midget, rather, he had a unique developmental problem with affected only the size of his legs, leaving him with the approximate proportions of a thin chimpanzee. Back then, he compensated for his diminuitive statute with an oversized, boisterous personality, and the ability to use his own arms as a jump rope. Nowadays, he compensates with a myspace profile chalk full of pictures of him from the waist up, my favorite being this one.

I've been cruising myspace a lot lately for additional people to add to my friend's list, for the sake of nostalgia, comradery, and publicity: I've taked to announcing my new blog posts on the bulletin board to drive people here, where they can experience, first-hand, the steaming pile of prose that is my self-interest. This is especially satisfying when the reader is one of the many I went to high school with but whom did not know me particularly well, seeing me only as the intellectual misfit who was constantly scribbling her thoughts into a notebook or blogging them on the library computers.

See how far I've, uh, come? *Ahem*

Sometimes I start writing a post without any intention of it being ironic, then, as it comes out, I become more and more aware of the subtle mockery I'm unconsciously making of myself. It seems that, here, there is a delicious parallel: In high school, I had Lance-legs in the areas of fashion sense, social skills and, let's face it, personal hygiene. I faced this with either defiant, counter-culture avoidance of the people I wasn't like and the skills I didn't have, or with a humorous, defensive turn of phrase, like "Hey, look at that short kid who can jump rope with his own arms!" Now, Lance's profile highlights his upper body and mine has only pictures of Pretty-From-A-Certain-Angle Girl.

And yet, I lead them here. Here, where I bare my soul, my flaws, my insecurities. Sure, I dress them up in their Sunday best, but still, this is a fairground of failings. It seems that I endeavor to face my deepest fear: That those who love me would not if they knew who I really was. Put it out there, unpretentious, and send the people there, to read about all the miserable things I say, think, and do. She's a snob, a pervert, and a hypocrite. She's a currently unemployed waste of human life, someone who clings to her own pathetic blog for validation.

But if she can make you laugh by the end of the post, well then, maybe that's something.


Fierygwenivere: I'm now finding the profiles of all the Popular guys who were too list that they went to LHS, so I have to search for their names individually. Justin Costello, Jeremy Steenson, etc. If they don't accept my friend requests, it's gonna be like my sixth grade birthday party all over again.
FieryGwenivere: I'm thinking of creating a second myspace profile that I will use for adding as many people as humanly possible, just so I can announce my updates on it and up my traffic.
Snappyguy: just tell everyone you're on a webcam like so many other girls seem to
FieryGwenivere: that's not the way to get thoughtful, literary traffic
FieryGwenivere: and you don't get a whole lot a guys who are like "A cam girl? Alright! Oh, it's a blog...even better! Now I can get to know her for the person she really is."



In other news, an new show will be airing on British television called "Masturbation for Girls", featuring "an 'orgasm coach' who teaches three ladies all her tricks, which they will demonstrate, live, to camera." The source of this information it this article by Carol Sarler, in which she argues that position that this is a disgrace to woman, a pitiful attempt to masquerade porn as education, and cheap television. She makes some decent points decently well and, unlike other online journalist I've read lately, can use a semi-colon. Do I agree with her? I don't know. Lately, my level of conservativeness is flippant at best, and reality TV has always been a bit of hot button for me. So, whether or not this is pornography or "cheap" isn't really something I see fit to argue from either side; however, there are some points she didn't make which beg to be argued, and I did so in the form of a comment to her article that the editors decided not to publish. So, I'll make them here.

First of all, porn or not porn, her viewpoint on this show seems to suggest that female sexuality, in whatever form it takes, is something to be ashamed of, and that's a stigma that has done quite enough damage to the world at large already. Secondly, with the world as it is today, more women than ever are reporting suffering from Female Sexual Dysfunction, as well as being pre-orgasmic. Whatever the marketing strategies behind it, here is a show that endeavors to teach women how to have an orgasm, a show that prioritizes a woman's pleasure. Carol Sarler argues that this show could not possibly be "mark of women's progress and of liberation". But the fact is that this day in age, there are still thousands of women utterly dissatisfied in their sex lives, and who have resigned themselves to being merely an aid to the pleasures of men. This is one of the arenas that, despite progress, true liberation has not fully occured. Science says, doubtlessly, that having an orgasm is an essential function of life, alleviating physical and emotional tension and instilling a level of confidence sorely needed in today's women. Advancing the progress of pre-orgasmic women, therefore, isn't "science, education or art"; it's a fucking cause.


Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a date with my brand-new, 60-dollar vibrator. Gonna go have a little women's movement of my own.

On with it.



Technorati Tags: compensation little person personal evolution myspace insecurities masturbation england reality TV vibrator women's movement hitachi magic wand

First and foremost, Happy Birthday, Emily!

Please feel free to leave a comment below for the birthday girl, if I you (or I) can figure out how to work it. (Click Here!)

On a vaguely related matter, if you're ordering flowers from a online site, a site that's entire purpose is to deliver flowers, shouldn't the delivery fee be included in the price? There's no way to pick up these flowers, the whole point of the place is just to deliver them...I think that's rather slippery, FTD. Slippery indeed. Now, I want it made clear to the birthday girl that this is not even the slightest concern, and if she spends even a moment thinking about it, I will send her flowers every day for a month as punishment. But the principal of the thing seems a bit wrong.

Rosie O'Donnell has apparently gone and offended fundamentalist Christians on her new gig on The View, and people are acting like everything Rosie O'Donnell is, and, in fact, everything most people are, didn't offend fundamentalist Christians from day one. Her exact words: “Radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.”

You don't have to know me very well to know that I agree. This is obvious enough that I, in fact, would not be blogging about this at all had I not read this commentary on the whole thing. In it, pundit wanna-be Robert Paul Reyes writes a short and simplistic agreement to her words, blatantly disregarding, on multiple occasions, the functionality of a semi-colon and ending the article with "You go Rosie! You go girl!"

This begs the question-- why the hell is this guy getting paid to write grammar-killing blurbs about celebrities and politics while I write this drivel for less than 25 visitors a day? The feeling that I need to be doing more with my writing has begun to build up, once again. Let's see how far it gets me this time.

I mean, I know I'll never be on Robert Paul Keyes' level. I let that possiblity slide on by when I passed 11th grade English. Jackass.

On with it.



Technorati Tags: Rosie O'Donnell The View Robert Paul Reyes semi-colon fundamentalist radical christianity grammar